Michael Lewis Brotherton (born 26 May 1931) is a British journalist and politician. A Conservative, he had a promising Parliamentary career and worked as a Parliamentary consultant after his former constituency in Lincolnshire was abolished in boundary changes in 1983. Royal Navy career The son of a brewer, and brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, Brotherton went to Prior Park College. He enlisted in the Royal Navy and continued his education at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, qualifying as an Observer in 1955. He served in Cyprus in 1957 during a flare-up in communal conflicts and was mentioned in dispatches for distinguished conduct. Brotherton left the Navy after achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in 1964. Early political activity Retraining as an advertising executive, Brotherton joined Times Newspapers in 1967. He also became politically active in the Conservative Party, speaking at the Party conference of 1966 in support of building an aircraft carrier for the Navy, and was Chairman of Beckenham Conservative Political Centre for the year 1967–1968. At the 1970 general election, he was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate in Deptford. October 1974 election Failing to find a seat for the February 1974 general election, Brotherton became more prominent during the short interval between elections that year. He attacked the Labour government's decision to write off the debt of the National Coal Board. When Jeffrey Archer suddenly announced his decision to stand down from Parliament due to financial problems, Brotherton was selected as the candidate for Louth in the October 1974 general election. Brotherton won the seat but, in terms of swing, the result was one of the worst for the Conservatives in the election, attributed to the circumstances in which Archer left and the short time Brotherton had to make himself known. Policy positions Once in Parliament, Brotherton used the platform it gave him to express his views in somewhat forceful terms. During the Common Market referendum of 1975, Brotherton strongly attacked Edward du Cann who made a last minute anti-Market speech; Brotherton declared that du Cann "requires either psychiatric treatment or lessons in simple arithmetic". Brotherton demanded that the Royal Navy escort the British fishing fleet to defend it from Icelandic attacks during the Cod War. Early in January 1976 he challenged James Callaghan, then Foreign Secretary, to substantiate Sheila Cassidy's claim that she had been tortured in Chile before making any protest to the Chilean government.